hello and welcome across town people about the rise and fall of civilizations for over a century there have been predictors of western decline given the global financial crisis that started in two thousand and eight and the stagnation in much of the western world are some of those predictions coming true and if the west is in decline what will take its place. to cross-talk the decline of the west i'm joined by alexander graff lamb stores he's in brussels he is the vice president of the liberal group in the european parliament and in some paolo we crossed the pepe escobar he is a journalist and author all right gentlemen cross talk rules and if that means you can jump in anytime you want to be if i go to you first is the west in decline. you should ask spangler in fact they're sure they're spangler stone because hundred

years ago. it's very complicated the west is not declining the middle classes all across the western developed world they're not only declining but they are going off the grid altogether in fact deletes are not declining so if you ask the elites in brussels by the way in washington d.c. they are fighting the decline of the west and nail and this implies financial capitalism and the nexus between financial capitalism neal liberalism and the war party which is basically the democrats in the republics in the west but also some parties in europe as well so the elites will fight it it's the decline of the roman empire you could you could see it's in slow motion but it's also the tour turbo accelerated version and we have to ask this question to our friends in beijing by the way because for them this is the chinese century so what are they putting in in place. terms of not emulating all the mistakes committed by the west especially

for these past one hundred years and is there going to be a chinese century there is a chinese century chinese characteristics i don't think so but then we're going to talk about it soon ok alexander when you come in on this guy's head well i just don't think the west is in the climate quite on the contrary we're the most dynamic economic structure that exists on the face of the earth we tracked more foreign direct investment in europe alone than all the brics together india china russia brazil and if one talks about the chinese century let's just look at a couple of elections that just took place everybody followed the us elections it was a very tight race between president obama and mitt romney in france we had a new president elected and people followed that in russia there was an election but not much choice and in china there wasn't even the pretended they didn't pretend to elect a new leader they just put someone there and people don't want that people want democracy people want to say people want to play

a role in their societies china does not offer that to them in the political sphere and therefore i believe for a long time coming there's not going to be a chinese century while alexander what about the middle class what it said about the middle class because that's the power of the west traditionally. yes i mean the middle class is very strong in the west pretty is right there are problems we have a declining middle class that is something we have to fight but for the time being we are both the most competitive societies and the most equitable societies if you look at the distribution of income in china in russia in brazil you will see that the first the people at the very top they will get so much more of their share of national wealth than the rest of society that is not the case in the west yes we have a you know a number of rich people in the united states and in europe but by and large the middle class is the strongest in the west stronger than anywhere else pepe what about rising middle classes elsewhere. no. we have to

qualify what alexander just said. the problem is inequality in. western countries starting with the west look i was before the u.s. election i did six thousand miles in six southwest states i saw poverty all over i lived in california twenty years ago i used to go to the southwest in years ago when you compare what's going on in parts of nevada in parts of utah and parts of colorado now days to twenty years ago you know it. is graphic anybody in europe is more complicated for instance i have lots of friends in spain my son lives in barcelona for that matter so i'm in close contact what's going on inside spain's unemployment rate for the new generation the google facebook generation now is fifty percent so even if you go to a good school or even a back nickel school. it is in spain our stores there's no jobs so the solution for them is to immigrate to south america over here you know any in europe is more

complicated have parts of germany which have some of the best standard of living anywhere in the world you have northeastern italy for instance which has a tradition of small and premiership you go to a small. construction area. making clothes either gucci styling florence or making food in bali and export all over the world but it is they've been doing that for a thousand years or so and then you compare it to rome maples in southern italy it's a total disgrace date themselves and say that they live in africa and in fact so this is the problem is the inequality inside the western capitalist system and this inequality is being reproduced by the chinese most of the time i am between those americas north and south europe and china whenever i travel inside china i see the same mistakes they are committing that the west has been committing for the past twenty years and it's basically to apply new liberalism to china alexander you

clarkie disagreed go ahead of course they disagree the problem is not inequality in and of itself the problem is the degree of inequality and i have driven around the southwestern united states as well and of course there's impoverishment there but if you drive up and down the east coast the united states you will find that between boston miami i mean there's an enormous degree of wealth there other parts of the countries that are enormously wealthy the same goes for europe and of course pepe is right spain is in crisis yes southern italy has been in crisis for decades yes does that mean the entire west the western social model is in decline no i fundamentally disagree we have managed to create a degree of inequality in our societies that maintains the dynamism people want to move up and they have the opportunity to move up i believe that in parts of the united states the degree of inequality is at a level that would never be acceptable in europe but in europe our inequality that we have here maintains a dynamism and actually social mobility. in western europe these days is higher than it is in the united states or in other societies for that matter ok pepe what

about the welfare state can it survive all this yes in scandinavia exactly it's it does survive in scandinavia it's not going to survive in the club med countries then any if you compare their social services to the countries in the northeast the lags behind them france which is more or less the middle term between the mad in the scandinavians you know will survive but how they're going to pay it they don't know sarkozy didn't know and obviously the pathetic francois hollande also doesn't know how to pay these bills so the problem is and when you when you see the bric countries where social services and help for the poor it's legs away behind even the club med countries in the over that's even more complicated like in brazil for instance if you are poor if you don't have private social security you have to go to a state hospital and you spend like six months or eight months in a bloody key you know waiting to get

a ticket so you can have an operation and this and we're talking about the six largest economy in the world you know obviously they don't have enough funds to support social security system for almost two hundred million people the country is still basically a poor country with pockets of one percent all over just like china just like russia or for that matter i wouldn't even talk about start talking about india where you know social security for one billion indians is absolutely out of the picture ok eleanor they couldn't in your head. i couldn't agree more but it makes my point yes we do have inequality yes we have problems in the west but we address them and generally speaking i think you know millions actually perhaps billions of people would love nothing better than live in the west we do not have to wait eight months before you before you treated in hospital. you don't have to spend a year's salary on medical treatment where you have access to basic social services

where you have low levels of corruption where you have inefficient by and large administration where you have the rule of law where you can rely on the level alexander is rational is it sustainable what you're talking about well it must be made sustainable and the club med that was just mentioned the countries in the south of europe they have lived beyond their means and it's true they go through a phase of contraction right now the situation in spain is not good the situation in greece is not good but i believe these countries will pull their acts together they will move out of this spain has been a very good performer and terms of its public finances it has grown dramatically over the last twenty thirty years it loses a little bit of that growth now but it will rebound greece is a special case but it's too small to discuss it here as a an example for the west at large generally speaking i'd say millions of people would still love in countries that looks like the western countries so there is no decline it tempting me how is this going to work overtime ok look i have a bill agree with alex and in terms of when i travel in central asia for instance

their model is not the us their model is western europe. question about that well when you consider the way they're living it was back to stan which is one of the most absurd and the more dangerous dictatorial regimes in the world but nobody says anything about those because then they do ask because they are allied with the u.s. or specially the us wants to have a beachhead in its back is done in terms of controlling central oil and gas resources and that's another story as well we should talk about resources if we don't change this model which is the french. you know it's waste it's a waste model basically to own a fossil fuels this thing is going to explode with the middle class over adult middle class and inside the capital the western capitalist system within the next few years is not even decades in fact when we have this what's happening in greece

spain parts of italy. portugal when they sing hits the norse in european countries any it will inevitably maybe not german maybe not germany because germany has a very sound economy they have their export model they're doing a strategic alliances with russia in terms of oil and gas as well they are sustainable but the rest of europe with the exception of germany and scandinavia is not then we going to have sort of the occupy wall street movement inside western europe as well and this is going to happen within the next few years our economy because the model itself is unsustainable right you're not going to jump in here we're going to go to a short break and after that your first book in your discussion on the west stay with our.

well going into the. this month high tech means good help whether it be the latest laser cutters on lifesaving heart valves russian innovators are working hard to keep you healthy person companies it's been a winding road from car simulators to cutting edge training systems for others it's been a lifetime of work i'm locking the mysteries of this so check it all out on technology update we've got the future covered. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so horrible you think you understand it and then you glimpse

something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

please. please. please please. liz. the. question would be soon which bryson if you knew about song from funniest impression . from stunts on t.v. dot com.

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welcome back to crossfire remind you we're talking about a possible to find the way. alexander like to go back to you in brussels you know outside of the west however we're going to find that the west has seen as a bit very violent ok over the last twenty years since nato interventions is this something that the west should be proud of. well i mean i think the west is still the largest force for good in the world i mean the interventions that have taken place if you think about afghanistan for example that has been to rout out al qaeda operation based terrorist organization that has struck around the world from bali to madrid to london there has been one grave error on which europeans and americans had a you know a dramatic fall out that was the iraq war that should not have taken place but compared to certain other regions the west is the most peaceful and stable region there is no conflict inside of the west if you look to russia with the chechen

conflict in the northern caucasus if you look to singe are now in the diner that's been over for a decade now more than in a while now more than a decade so it's not a conflict. well i mean i would still call it a conflict with violent conflict but money is not a vote there's no vat there's not violence in chechnya maybe around it but not in chechnya ok then i'll say cases here and let's look us laid out allegations and there were trials yeah well i mean let's let's look at south ossetia let's look at abkhazia let's look at the transnistria we have a number of areas in which we have unresolved territory conflict that is not the situation the west simply speaking simply puts our territory conflicts that we will still have. dealt with or they are dealt with at the conference table we discuss these issues in a way that is very peaceful and if you look and that is i think the most dramatic really the most dramatic region in the world the south china sea the far east north eastern asia with north korea and our resolve territorial disputes in

a region where you don't have any kind of functioning regional integration that is a region that i'm really nervous about it's not so much the west and what it does it is about china and japan and vietnam and taiwan what is going to happen in the north in the north east of asia that makes me nervous not the west ok pepe what do you think the people in afghanistan think in libya in syria and i go ahead tonight yeah let me talk a little bit about the south china sea is my backyard because one of my bases is hong kong in fact what's happened in the south china sea is going to be solved in a mechanism between the association of the southeast asian countries stan countries and china the problem is the un they will last to have a collective bargaining discussion in the china wants a bilateral discussion i'm sure all over the next few i wouldn't say months but perhaps over the next two years or so they will find a mechanism to discuss all the disputes it's basically about oil and gas it's

always about energy so who's going to exploit water. so they're going to still has problems in the south china sea. no it's not i hope i'm right it's it's it's what we are getting from the political leadership from these southeast asian nations and also from the chinese as china doesn't want a confrontation with the south east southeast asia especially because most of these countries if not all of them their major trading partner is guess it china of course you would probably already know the. reference currency all over. it's not the us dollar anymore it's the new one and now you can change you one virtually everywhere even in a shopping mall in bangkok for that matter so it's going to be the future reference carus and trade between china is going to grow exponentially so there's no need for

a war what do we have is a competition for a gemini between china india and the us it involves not only the south china sea but this whole arc that goes from the arabian sea across the south china sea and the norse china sea as well where japan in north korea that's in the careers are involved as well but this is a big difference a big power play basically between the u.s. and china and india who wants to more or less control what goes on in an indian ocean we all know that in the future these three all have to live in the same waters the chinese navy the indian navy and u.s. navy so that brings us to the u.s. pivoting announced by a bomb almost a year ago at the pentagon if they go with the militaristic kind of thing towards asia then we're going to have a conflagration against china soon within the next few weeks if they go for some

kind of commercial alliances with countries in asia individually dennis' a much better prospect for the u.s. and for the west in general ok alexander you know began the i mean you know nato is nato a force for good ok because it's looking to the pacific now over. well i mean nato is reaching out to countries like australia and japan to intensify their cooperation but i'll give you an example of that you just mentioned a country where terrorists are very often and that is libya if it had not been for nato colonel gadhafi would have murdered the inhabitants of him god i don't know that we don't know that how do you know that you know the history you know that we . will now that his or anyone who has held you will have a sky for twenty years thirty years is a crazy guy don't listen to him when he makes one statement then you listen to him it doesn't make any logical sense at all his troops were sampling outside of

benghazi they were preparing to enter the town he has said that we were he will squash the cockroaches who live there and i quote the colonel gadhafi don't know them and i were going to add reuters actually over a very sad reuters story ok well writers has a generally speaking a rather good reputation anyway and is then really going well and i had a flight to islam misfires not to the population of benghazi strew i don't think so i said i don't lie so isn't a certain irony which was either way the same islam misfires who attacked the u.s. consulate in benghazi a year later so he was the right of at the time the intervention of nato at least protect innocent civilians in libya and i've travelled really highly in the run even after the bombing started flicked well obviously we got a little side away back off and this is a little help more people will let me finish my sentence. ok thank you very much is obvious that the conflict on and in terms of the gathered intensity after

the bombing started simply because the rebels followed all the way back from benghazi to tripoli with which is one thousand kilometers so it's a long distance they had to cover i traveled there many times now the population has had the first democratic election. countries slowly along a difficult path of coming together and i think if you compare the situation in libya today with oil exports starting again with a democratic election in place with a constitutional process in place and you look to syria where no intervention can take place because the united secure nation security council cannot agree because of the russian veto then there we have a problem and no intervention is and here thirty thousand people dead and the suffering continues as we speak alexander so you think it's a good it's good to intervene militarily to export democracy as a good business to be a little variable then we all know it is a big picture and there are a very american imperialism all over again. happy go ahead. no i

answered the question i do not be i don't want to let humanitarian enter here in this house all over again right under our religion as an area that point it's fair to go ahead and honor our follow you to two thousand anything i've said pretended that they were going to export democracy by going into iraq and there was a there was a terrible mistake you can intervene militarily only in a situation where the moral values that you defend they that they they justify the cause and i believe in the libyan case they did just as they did in the balkans after the massacre of srebrenica it was necessary to do these things it is always the option of last choice one should never do this easily and it's very clear that we in europe do not have a view that this should be done easily absolutely not but there are situations in which it is unavoidable and then you must do it and you must do it forcefully and then you must win such a campaign to keep happiness at work. please upsurge look i respect alexander's point of view but i've heard this sing from american sings thanks for

over ten years now you know it's a come on they should change the cd by the way it's ridiculous look i've been talking to some very good sources at the european union level in brussels you know what's brewing at the moment a nato war in syria any who know the who doesn't want this war germany in fact that absolutely pathetic. secretary general of nato has been pressured by the americans and by the turks to go on a mentor against syria and some norse in the european countries and specially germany because they know the backlash and the blowback could be absolutely horrendous even worse than libya they're saying no at the moment so this is nato as global robocop it's the same old saying that they decided in that ghastly meeting that they had two years ago in lisbon it's their charter for the twenty first century it's nato is global robocop intervening all over the developing world

especially islamic world and specially against brown people in support are of other dodgy brown people who happen to be islam is the gangs like the islamist gangs who rule libya nowadays and will probably try to rule syria after war this is completely absurd i would see in terms of if i was stuck in on a fox news accent today i would tell you right away the greatest force of evil in the world is not al qaeda it's the top itself alexander apply reply i have to go i have to give it to. them very weak arguments in a very strong way but they remain weak arguments first of all i mean look at what is going on in syria today this is the only. goal to why don't you go to war in iraq syria and libya. like i did why don't you see what the west between iraq i did it before during and after and then we can have

a discussion based on facts on the ground i think i've been very i think i've been very clear about the fact that i think that the iraq campaign was profoundly mistaken both in terms of its justification and in terms of its execution the countries on the board of separation in the north but the point of the fact of the matter is there are situations desirable or not in which the military as a tool is necessary in foreign policy i believe that i mean that you know anybody in moscow who has looked at the geopolitical developments over the last one hundred fifty two hundred years would agree with that the military at times is a necessary tool and if you look for example to a situation like the one in northern mali today where you have exams and really sorry i have to jump in here we've run out of time gentlemen many thanks indeed to my guest in brussels that somehow though and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at c.n.n. kleiman remember. when.

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